


Infinite Within

by dizzy



Category: Stargate SG-1
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-08-27
Updated: 2015-08-27
Packaged: 2018-04-17 11:28:22
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,731
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4664868
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/dizzy/pseuds/dizzy
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Vala feels a little claustrophobic.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Infinite Within

Earth becomes too small for Vala Mal Doran. 

The apartment she fought and clawed to be given is stifling. The walls close in on her and outside the air she breathes feels oppressive. 

She's been here for almost ten years and it's strange, so very strange how much her life has changed since she met one man who changed her life. She will never not love Daniel Jackson for what he did for her, even if some days she doesn't particularly like him. 

(He calls her the sister he never had. She tells him he hopes he doesn't kiss his sister like he kissed her, but it's an innocent tease, a fond poke at something that was never going to get off the ground.) 

She doesn't fear growing older but she fears not using the time she has to live as best she can. She realizes over a stretch of six months that she isn't doing that on Earth. She's adapted to the Tau'ri way of life, but just because it's home doesn't mean she isn't allowed to want to leave now and then. 

* 

She tells Cameron her plan to leave over dinner in the mess hall. The way his mouth draws in displeasure is both gratifying and frustrating. 

There aren't many people in her life she's ever been sad about leaving behind, but he'll be one of him. 

Unless she just - doesn't. 

"Come with me?" She says, the tone of her voice almost making it a question for both of them. 

"I can't," he says, but it's an automatic response. 

Two days later, she asks him again. "Come with me?" 

He's slower to respond this time. "I can't?" 

"Come with me." She doesn't even ask this time. 

He looks at her and nods. "Yeah. I think - yeah." 

*

He puts in for a six month leave of absence from the SGC. He's got so much time off banked that it'll barely make a dent. 

All the details are left up to Vala. Enthusiasm quickens her steps. Why wait, now that they know this is going to happen? Why delay? She gives only just enough time for him to take a trip back to see his parents, hinting and hinting and hinting until she gets an invite herself. 

They eat pie in Kansas and laugh and talk and she's fairly certain after so many years his parents think that she's the closest thing to a daughter in law they'll get, and Vala doesn't mind at all. 

She really doesn't think Cameron minds, either. He walks with an arm around her waist and offers her his jacket and becomes all adorably alpha male when another man looks too closely at her. 

They watch fireworks on the fourth of July and she leans her body up to kiss him on the cheek. Things like this are why she'll never be able to really say goodbye to this planet. 

* 

She buys a ship and plots a course and by the first week of August they're piling bags into the cargo container and double, triple, quadruple checking environmental and life support systems. 

They have enough food to last a few weeks. Vala says she knows where they're going. Her plans have changed since gaining a traveling companion. Instead of unknown exploration, she just wants to show Cameron her favorite things in the universe. 

"Intergalactic tour guide," he says, grinning. 

He does that a lot here. No uniforms to weigh him down, no responsibility for hundreds of lives. She wonders how much he really needs this kind of break, and if he'd ever have found the will to do this on his own. 

She pats herself on the back. She's a good friend. He needs someone like her. 

*

The ship only has four rooms. There's a waste and hygiene area, the control room, a bedroom, and a kitchen. 

Cam calls it a space apartment. He's clearly charmed by it, much moreso than Vala - who has lived in such cramped quarters for too much of her life. This is not the dregs of longterm travel accommodations, but it's one step up. 

*

They start out with two thick sleeping pads on opposite sides of the room but it doesn't take long for them to decide it's better to stack the mattresses and share the space. 

Vala's never slept so well. It has to all be mental, because her bones creak more than they used to and her back is sore more often than not when she wakes up. But Cam is warm and she likes how his voice sounds when they talk late into the night and she likes even more when she wakes up with his arm around her. 

* 

The first planet they stop at has a market full of foods he's never tried. She spends more money than she really should on what will be a feast for dinner, and a few meals beyond. 

The merchant she pays her coins to is a weird little man who looks her over and then looks at Cam and compliments him on his choice of mate. 

Cam laughs an awkward laugh, but he doesn't correct the man. Vala can't explain why that makes her feel a little like she's floating for the rest of the day. 

* 

Cam kisses her for the first time on one of Qetesh's world, after she's spent half an hour talking and crying until her voice is raw. 

This wasn't meant to be a healing kind of trip but they were passing close to the planet and something deep in her stirred and needed to remember. 

He holds her afterward and when she says she almost hates herself for what she did, and how much she's forgotten that she's capable of, he tells her he loves her and how much she means to him. The two don't really equate - one man's love doesn't cancel out dozens of deaths - but she appreciates the attempt all the same. 

* 

They've been traveling for a month. They bicker constantly with absolutely no malice behind it. It's a comforting kind of pattern to fall into, familiar to both of them. 

Cam checks in with the SGC every few days, and a couple of times they find worlds with gates so he can pop back in and make sure no one's burned the mountain down yet. She fusses at him and sulks and refuses to leave the ship, but he knows it's because she's afraid he'll decide to cut the trip short. He makes sure he visits never last more than an hour and brings her back chocolate as a peace offering. 

* 

Of course, disasters happen. 

The ship almost breaks twice and the filtration system goes completely haywire, requiring a stop on a dodgy planet Vala has only passing knowledge about, and they almost get shot for not realizing the local customs that forbid the color pink. 

(Well, Vala almost gets shot, and Cam puts himself between her and the gun, and then they both run like hell.) 

*

They start sleeping together and it's almost strange how much of a non-event it is. It's good sex, but it's not like being blinded by passion. It feels more like needed punctuation at the end of a sentence. They fit together physically just like they do in every other way. 

Vala's just not sure why it took them so long to figure it out. 

* 

She can tell when he starts getting homesick. 

They've only been gone for three months. They planned for six, but she doesn't actually mind the idea of setting a course back for Earth quite so much as she thought she would. 

What she will miss is waking up and going to sleep and sharing every little moment with Cameron. 

She tells him so in a wobbling voice, relying only slightly on the time-honored tradition of emotional manipulation. She's not really sure she needed to at all because his voice sounds far too confident, like it's an idea he's already been considering, when he asks her if she wants to move in with him when they get home. 

* 

It still takes another three weeks to get back. They draw it out a little bit, stopping so Cam can get souvenirs for people. His parents think he and Vala are exploring Antarctica together, with a few stop overs in other countries on the way back. He's not sure what it says about how well he's conditioned them that they actually bought that excuse with no argument. 

Vala helps him pick everything out, always things that maybe look like they could have come from Earth but seem slightly strange enough to be viewed as unique. She picks out more than a few things for herself, too, including a pretty green dress that she wears on the ship the night they have their last dinner together on their little home away from home. 

* 

"Thank you," she says, sitting on his bed the day after they officially move her in. She can see him through the open door of the en suite bathroom, brushing his teeth. 

She loves how just looking at him makes her stomach twist all pleasantly sometimes. Has it always been like this? Maybe. She just didn't have a name for it before like she does now. She _loves_ him. 

"What for?" Cam asks. 

"Everything." She sighs, and then stretches out on the bed. "But mostly for coming with me on another one of my hare-brained ideas."

It's a phrase she stole from him. 

"You're just a wanderer at heart," Cam says, smiling a little in that way that makes his eyes go squinty. She rolls onto her side and rests her head in her head. "I figured that out a long time ago." 

"But there haven't been many people that wanted to wander with me, just because I asked." She dips her head a little as he joins her on the bed. 

He leans in and kisses her, fingers closing carefully around her wrist in such a gentle way. "Sweetheart, there's not much you could ask me that I wouldn't do." 

Her face lights up. "Buy me a pony?" 

"Except that," he laughs. 

She pretends to point. "Fine." 

That night she dreams of space, and of earth, and Cam. Earth may still be too small at times, and space may be too big, but right here beside him feels just right.


End file.
